Dear VATUSA1,

[Jeff Thomas]

Can you please provide us with an update on the state of VATUSA?

 

I am in particular interested in the following:

 

- The training academy

- The new website

- Any special plans for the new ATC client other than those provided by VATSIM

- Any more "special positions" you plan to create

- Your general plan for remainder of 2006

 

Also, if you are need of any help in any regard, could you outline that as well? I know you post empty positions, but is there anything else any of us could do to help lessen the load?

 

I am just trying to get a sense of your vision and intentions. You know us controllers and pilots, we like to know what's going on

 

If this is held in meeting minutes somewhere or from the convention, please provide the links as appropriate.

 

Thank you to you and your staff for all your hard work to keep VATUSA running.

 

Sincerely,

Jeff Thomas

 

PS> I post this publicly because I believe the entire community can benefit from having a grasp on your vision.

[Kevin Noe 895858]

I am sure something will be posted soon. All those topics where cover the last two days at the VATUSA conference.

[Mark Tomassoni 813617]

Yes, let them get back in town from the convention!

 

Mark Tom[Mod - Happy Thoughts]oni

ATM KZID

[Mark Brummett]

Also, keep in mind that while we did discuss all of these at the convention, it wasn't formal as such.

 

But, from what I understand, the Powerpoint presentations that were used will be made publically available at a future date.

[Nicholas Bartolotta 912967]

Yeah, I think that would actually answer all of Jeff's questions, the Town Hall Meeting presentation covered pretty much all of that.

[Jeff Turner]

Yeah, I think that would actually answer all of Jeff's questions, the Town Hall Meeting presentation covered pretty much all of that.

 

There will be a VATUSA notam sent to it's membership in the coming week about all of this.

[Andrew Steinberg 939662]

Yeah, I think that would actually answer all of Jeff's questions, the Town Hall Meeting presentation covered pretty much all of that.

 

There will be a VATUSA notam sent to it's membership in the coming week about all of this.

 

Mr. Turner, that week as p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed and no NOTAM has been sent out. What is going on here?

[Jeffery Williams 849847]

Yeah, I think that would actually answer all of Jeff's questions, the Town Hall Meeting presentation covered pretty much all of that.

 

There will be a VATUSA notam sent to it's membership in the coming week about all of this.

 

Mr. Turner, that week as p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed and no NOTAM has been sent out. What is going on here?

 

Uhh..I think he sent it in an email yesterday.

[Kiel McGowan 813486]

I got one...like yesterday, check your email!

[Jeffery Williams 849847]

What is going on here?

 

Don't quote me on this, but the rumor floating around is that some guy named Andrew isn't checking his email.

[Andrew Miller 873677]

What is going on here?

 

Don't quote me on this, but the rumor floating around is that some guy named Andrew isn't checking his email.

Huh? I check my email.

[Jeremy Moser 949051]

hmmm, I never got this email either, but then again I am using a Verizon email and I can never recieve emails from VATUSA anyway.

[Andrew Steinberg 939662]

Havn't gotten an email.

[Jeffery Williams 849847]

Team VATUSA,

 

I wanted to send all of you a note of the happenings behind the scenes

at VATUSA. The past 6 months have been a very busy one and I thank you

in advance for your support and the incredible amount of patience that

you have all shown while we birth a new division.

 

Recently, we held the very first VATUSA convention. For VATUSA to be

around since 2001 and SATUSA before then, it had never been done, yet,

thanks to the incredible hard work of Mark Zameda and Mark Brummett, we

pulled it off this year in Chicago, ILL. We had about 45 people

attending which exceeding what we had planned on and brought even more fun. We

had outstanding presentations, 17 Centers staffed from the convention,

Real world ZAU center tour, and Mooney plane rides too! The atmosphere

was a very laid back, very relaxing and again, fun was had by all. You

can read about it at this link - - >

http://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?t=8575 we are in the process of

making the picture pages and presentations available on the VATUSA

website.

 

For next year, the attendees for the first convention selected Las

Vegas as a tentative second convention site, while Las Vegas has a history

of being high in price for conventions, we are talking with the Hilton

that hosted us in Chicago and I’m told that discussions are promising

for a good rate for us in Vegas. If this can not be accomplished with a

fair price, we will go back to the membership and ask for alternates.

However, we plan on talking with a travel agency to get a package

together for us so that each member that decides to come pays the same price

for airfare, hotel, etc. This technique has been used by others on the

network and seems to work pretty well. If it includes saving money, I’m

all for it… Thanks again to those that came out to support us despite

the few that thought it wouldn’t happen or wouldn’t be successful, they

couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

 

At this year’s convention, I talked a lot about numbers… VATUSA has

over 12000 members. Once of the largest divisions and by far probably the

busiest on the network. Of those numbers, 1230 are active controllers…

Which means that 11564 are inactive or connect as pilots only. These

are some disappointing numbers for sure; however we are going to change

them… Additionally, VATUSA has accepted 332 new students from 8 November

to 24 March. Of those numbers, only 90 have gone past the student level

and 58 past the senior student level. Again, more disappointing

numbers. So, what are we going to do about it… We will be reaching those

in-actives and inviting them back to the console and as you know, Jim

Johnson when he took the helm at Training in October promised a training

academy where each student would be taught the basics of ATC and one

standard of training rather then the 22 that we have now. Jim had to

resign based on real life obligation and Jason Sutton stepped up to the

plate and continued it all on… The training academy is scheduled to open

17 April pending any show stoppers. You can expect to see some requests

for volunteers for Instructors and mentors (C1 and above) soon and the

ARTCC Training Admins will be taking the applications to forward to

VATUSA training. Those instructors will serve a quarterly basis with the

option to remain longer if they wish and mentors serving 2 months with

extension possible for Senior Controllers.

 

Students upon joining VATUSA will be directed right to the academy,

once there, [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned a mentor to teach 3 stages of syllabus and

Instructors to test their accomplishments. All training will be conducted off

line at the newest world airport KUSA. Each stage is broken down in to

about 5 lessons each and there are 3 stages of training. Students are

expected to complete at least one lesson per week in order to graduate

with in about 30 days depending on real life issues. They can select an

ARTCC just before graduation and will move there as a Senior Student and

ready to plug in after being taught SOP by the ATMs staff. The stages

of training are broken down as follows - 1) ASRC set up, Basic ATC,

Delivery 2) Ground Operations 3) Local Control. There will be no teaching

of ARTCC sop as the student will learn that upon graduation. The

Instructor student ratio is expected to be 1:5. Students will learn on the

ACSIM software and Tower Trainer. Will the academy ever expand into

TRACON and En route? Maybe. After we have the first few cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts]es and see

where we need to make changes and see where else we can develop the one

standard of training that we need.

 

So, when does it start? Again, 17 April is the planned opening date

and I can’t tell you how excited I am about it… Truly a great and very

special thing is about to happen here and I’m glad that all of you are a

part of it.

 

Other things that are high priority are the website facelift. Craig

Merriman continues to work hard on a re-write of the website. He tells me

that there is a lot to go thru and much of it wasn’t working. There is

no longer support for what we use now so he is having to almost to a

complete re-write to a site that more user friendly to the ATMs, TA’s and

all of you. This will include a nice feature that the people in VATEUR

use. Eurobook. VATUSA has had this option for a long time, but is

only used by few. ZLA being on of them. You can sign in to the ATC/Pilot

booking link on the VATUSA website and then look at Servinfo to see when

ATC might be available. A newer, better events system as well as the

one we have now is a lot of work just to add one event. There is talk of

RSS feed for the VA’s to use for their websites.

 

Other things p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed on at the convention by Richard Jenkins:

 

VRC (The latest ATC Client) is now in Release candidate 4. Almost

ready!!!

 

PMDG has donated a server to VATSIM for developers to test their new

stuff for us!

 

Rw.avsim.net is gone as a voice server. Not coming back. No news yet as

if VATSIM intends to add another one to compensate.

 

 

 

I’ve had some specific questions however brought to my attention like

addition of more staff. There are plans to add one more staff member,

and that is deputy events. News on that to come soon. It’s actually been

open for awhile, just not filled. There may be a deputy training

director in the future, but no immediate plans.

 

Inactive staff members have also been brought to our attention and we

are looking at several ARTCC that have inactive TAs and ATMs, staff

members and looking at ways that we can bring some life to them.

 

Events are coming along great! Richard Green has a good grasp and is

breathing some life in to them. Beginning with the historical Cross the

Pond event on the 22nd. With this event, the VATUSA TMU will be staffed

and ensuring proper separation and helping get the pilots in where they

need to be quickly and with out much trouble. Keeping in mind that this

is a registration event and pilots flying in to the event already have

an arrival slot. If you decide to show up the day of, you may have a

bit of a delay while they look for a slot for you. Keep an eye on the

event calendar and VATUSA forum for details. You can expect more of the

TMU at the major events to ensure a smooth ride for pilots and

controllers…

 

Again, I can’t tell you enough how great of a time that we had at the

convention, it warmed my heart honestly to finally meet and talk with

many of you and to see the fly in underway and people working side by

side made me proud to be a part of this great organization.

 

To my ATMs, DATMs and TAs – THANK YOU for all that YOU do… You also

make VATUSA a truly special place.

 

Feedback is always welcome folks at [email protected]

 

Thanks for your time and attention and look forward to talking to all

of you again soon.

 

Jeff Turner

Director

VATUSA

[Edward McCoy 904185]

It's even on flightsim.com somewhere.

[Ethan Klapper 884347]

It's even on flightsim.com somewhere.

 

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/notams06/vatu0404.htm